


Strider

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon characters to enter and be tagged at a much later time., F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Original Character-centric, multiple trigger warnings - untagged but in each chapter description
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:16:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl becomes a young woman when she's pushed to fend for herself. A young woman takes a suspicious offer too precious to pass up, believing it's an opportunity to finally escape hell. An opportunity turns into hell and a young woman becomes. . . something she never would've dreamed. ------------------ Centered around my female OC, Tabitha Glass/Strider. I own this original character, as well as several others, and my character's timeline. I do not own the Marvel universe or any depicted canon characters, or any canon timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Mentions of physical, emotional, and verbal spousal and child abuse, underage sexual advancement, alcoholism, gambling, and self-harm. Depiction of vomiting. Brief, properly addressed, victim blaming.

“Ma’s drunk again,” Tabitha said quietly, walking into Andrew’s bedroom and sitting down on his bed.

The dark-haired teen scoffed, shaking his head and shoving at something, then dropped a knapsack on the closet floor to turn to his younger sister, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. “Which means Pa’s gambled poorly again and he’s going to come home and beat the living crap out of her,” he finished her statement. Andy had gotten more sarcastic and bitter the last year, and Tabitha had gradually adjusted to his new tone so that it didn’t scare her.

She nodded, pulling her knees in and tucking her hands between her thighs and calves. “I unplugged the stove so she doesn’t burn herself again. We were just supposed to have a ceasar for supper anyway…” She eyed the closet and glanced down at the bag, her brow furrowing slightly as she tried to puzzle out why he was packing it. This was the middle of summer. They didn’t have school or studies. “...You going somewhere?”

Andrew looked at her for a second and then nodded. “Yeah.” He pushed his glasses up to rest more comfortably on the bridge of his nose, looking away from her at the stuff on his desk, and then went and started organizing the papers and notebooks. He paused, hesitated, and then continued working while he spoke cautiously, trying to keep calm. “Remember last term, when that guy cornered you?”

Tabitha looked away anxiously, but nodded and stood, going over and watching what he was doing. Math notes here, English notes and essays and poetry and newspaper clips there, geography notes and essays and an atlas over there. Sorting by relevance. “The scary one who looked like he wanted to eat me?”

He laughed harshly, abruptly, fingers curling around a pen. Oh, the creep had wanted to eat her, alright. Those sickeningly gentle touches and Tabitha’s obviously uneasy fourteen-year-old body's language were the only things that came to mind now whenever Andrew saw that bastard. _Disgusting son of a-_ He stared down at the pen in his hand, forced his grip to relax, and shut his eyes tightly as he focused on slowing his breathing. “Yeah, that one,” he said finally, looking over at her and setting the pen down. “Bloody nose, black eye and almost twisted his arm out of its socket, right?”

She swallowed hard and looked down, nodding again. She’d been more terrified of Andrew than the other boy just then. Andrew hadn’t hit her. He hadn’t hit her, hadn’t locked her anywhere, hadn’t so much as squeezed her arm roughly. Not once. Never. Andy just didn’t do that to her. He’d raise his voice now and then, say something harsh that he didn’t mean, but he apologized later – sometimes he didn’t, and it stung, but Tabitha let it go. He hadn’t ever hit her. But the force and speed with which Andrew had pulled the other boy away from her and thrown him to the pavement, the harsh movements when he beat and bludgeoned him senseless. . .they were too familiar. Andrew had never hit her before, but. . . she’d never seen him hit someone else like that before either.

Andrew looked over at her and blinked a couple times, following his own thoughts while his sister followed hers. Only at the end of his three-day suspension from school - because of the injuries he’d dealt the other guy - Pa had tried at the table to maneuver him into insulting his sister, tried to imply that of course Tabitha’d been fucking _asking_ to be touched. As soon as he realized what Pa had been doing, Andrew had stonewalled, completely and utterly refused to respond to Pa except to point out that he _wasn’t_ stupid, he knew _exactly_ what was going on, and it was wrong.

That happened to throw Pa into a rage. And Andrew was sick of watching the bastard grab her wrists. He was _not_ going to be coerced into _doing_ it. So this time, he stopped it. He stood stiff-jawed over Tabitha and glared the cop down. The man had cursed at and berated him, and it hurt almost more than the belting that followed. It had to be the hardest beating he’d ever taken from their Pa. It was worth not seeing Tabitha break again. He told her that later, when she said he shouldn’t have taken it for her. Yes. He fucking _should_ have, and he _did_. And he’d do it again in a heartbeat, he’d gone on in very quiet and venomous tones; expressed his utter hatred of the gambling policeman. On and on, until she flinched.

Not at the words or near-snarls.

At the clenched, white-knuckled and shaking fists.

He had stopped talking, looked from his hands back to her, and she’d looked at him and swallowed, hesitated before saying those two simple words: “You’re angry.”

They’d been like a bucket of ice-cold water, waking him up. He and Tabs had always referred to Pa like that. Ma’s drunk. Pa’s angry. Ma’s drunk. Pa’s angry. 

Pa’s angry.

Pa’s angry.

_You’re angry._

She’d only ever said it once. It had been a statement, an answer, not meant to provoke, not meant to hurt. Just a statement. And he apologized while he fought with the realization – _no, I’m not. I can’t be. I_ won’t _be._ And Tabitha calmed him the best way she knew how, which was the same way Andrew calmed her – she hugged him, pet his hair, tried her best to say something encouraging. But she’d never said those two words again. There was no need to after he was aware of it, no need to keep pushing him into the cold water. No, when he was angry after that, she tried to help him. She might flinch in reaction to his anger, but she never cowered in fear. She trusted him too much not to hurt her.

Andrew recalled the times, when he was almost broken, at the end of some of those beatings. . . when he actually considered hurting her like Pa encouraged. So that he could, for once, have his father’s approval, his pride. So many times. . . As they both came back from their thoughts, Andrew was afraid that her trust might be misplaced.

“I wanted to kill him. That kid.” He wanted to kill Pa, too, but she didn’t need to know that.

Tabitha looked up at him, his confession surprising her. Shocking her, actually. She thought back to that guy. When Andrew and her touched, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was warm. Andrew felt like home. But this guy. . . He touched her suggestively, but his touches didn’t hurt like Pa’s. They were careful, they made her breath catch in her throat in a way that was different from vomiting. And he said things that were so nice, so approving and caring. Something was wrong, when he called her a little girl and told her what she wanted, made her wonder if maybe he was right, even though she hadn’t thought of it at all until he said that she wanted it. That’s why Andrew beat him: because something was wrong. Tabitha didn’t know _what_ was wrong, couldn’t understand it yet, but she trusted that Andrew did. But killing was wrong, too, wasn’t it? Why did he want to-

“I know he didn’t seriously hurt you, and he’s never going to so much as look at you again, but…” Andrew rubbed the back of his neck and reorganized a couple piles of papers. “I still wanted to kill him.” How could he possibly explain this? He couldn’t fathom why Tabitha didn’t see sexual abuse from a mile away, or why she didn’t make the connection that she herself had suggested – that Andrew was becoming just like his dad. He accepted the inability, but sometimes it was frustrating.

Heh. There he went blaming _her_ inability to understand instead of _his own_ inability. He _could_ explain this in a way that she'd understand. It was as simple as saying ‘remember when you said...?" What he couldn’t do was admit to being unable to control the rage that he was getting from their dad, hating him and at the same time wanting to please him and make him proud. He couldn’t admit to almost, purposefully, deciding to hurt her. _He_ couldn’t admit it, and he was blaming Tabitha’s – handicap, for lack of a better word. 

_**“Coward!”**_ Pa’s voice snapped through his head like a rubber band.

Tabitha watched the expressions flicker past – guilt, shame, hatred, uncertainty, wry humor, shame again, pain – helplessly, trying to figure out what Andrew was trying to say. But she couldn’t. Was he trying to explain why it was wrong? Was he going to say that he _did_ kill him? No, no, he wouldn’t have done that. Andrew was too smart to throw his life away on murder. She kept drawing a blank, and with no footholds on that train of thought, she looked back at his bag, looked at was on his desk, and her brow furrowed again. “Where are you going?” she asked abruptly, anxiously. He wasn’t making sense. He wasn’t saying what he was trying to say. He was packing a bag full of things that he used every day and things that he used once a month. He was talking about killing and the guy who made her feel wrong. And this was not right. Something was not right and Andrew was leaving because of something that he wasn’t telling her. When he told her about everything. Something was very not right. “Please tell me where you’re going-“ 

Andrew couldn’t watch her panic, and he was too near panic himself to calm her down. Instead of answering – _ **Coward!**_ \- he shook his head and turned back to what he was doing, bringing his bag over from the closet and tucking the neat little stacks of paper and notepad and binder into it, along with his laptop. 

Tabitha shook slightly and bit her left thumbnail while she watched, too many thoughts filling her head. He was always there when she got scared at school, he helped take care of mother, and who else would she talk to other than her psychiatrist, who she couldn’t talk to? The door slammed downstairs and she jumped, wincing. Pa. She didn’t know how she was supposed to survive without Andrew. She cried on him, he told her that it wasn’t right, that they didn’t deserve it, that they would get through it. He was her anchor. He was there when she broke. She was the reason he didn’t break, she knew that. She helped him, she calmed him and encouraged him. Who could she depend on and help now? She couldn’t depend on or help Ma and Pa. Ma took all the help that was offered but never did anything with it, and couldn’t be depended on. Pa didn’t want help and depending on him wasn’t safe. Andrew was the only permanently good thing that happened in this house, the only foundation she could ever remember having. If everything else went to shit, he was still there. She shook her head again, trying to find something to say.

“Why? Why are you leaving?” she asked, her voice breaking, throat feeling full. “It’s okay that you’re going, just please tell me why? Or where? Something? Please?”

Andrew shook his head again, turning her off and focusing entirely on what he was doing. He certainly couldn’t tell her who he was staying with, she’d have to tell Pa. He had no idea where he was going after that. He didn’t know what he was doing. And he simply _couldn’t_ admit why. He’d be back when he had a job, money, when he could take her out of here, and he’d explain everything then. He zipped up the backpack and then returned to the closet, starting to stuff clothes into a duffel bag. _**Coward!**_ Said the voice, one more time, clanging through his head like fucking churchbells, and he paused this time, but then continued. Coward. Fine. That’s what he was. But he just couldn’t admit to her that he wanted to- “Tabitha, leave my room or stop talking.”

Her mouth fell open and her eyes welled up, and she clenched her hands, shaking her head. “Why?”

“Because I can’t think,” the seventeen-year-old said quietly, coldly, the cruelest voice he could have used, not even looking at her.

She choked and stumbled over to the door, pausing in the doorway and looking back at him, wiping the tears away with her sleeve and hesitating, trying to control the start of sobs. “W-when are you g-going?”

Andrew paused, sighing slightly. There was no reason not to answer that. “In the morning,” he replied, his tone more gentle.

Tabitha nodded and sniffed, her eyes a little red already. “Y-you’ll say g-goodbye, right?”

He leaned against the closet frame for a second. He couldn’t. It wasn’t goodbye, and he couldn’t say it. He’d see her in two years or so. So he nodded. “Yeah. I’ll say goodbye.”

She nodded again, trusting him completely, and wiped her eyes again. “T-thank you,” Tabitha said quietly, then scampered out to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She stumbled over to the sink and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to make sense of what was happening. Acid stung her nostrils. _Not again. It hurts. Don’t do it again._ She heard Pa yelling downstairs, Ma’s slurred raised voice in response, and her stomach churned.

She quickly lifted the toilet lid and bent over the water before she lost the little remaining lunch that was in her stomach, that familiar burn raking her throat. She heaved liquid and then nothing, the nervous reaction automatic and unstoppable, just like the tears that ran down her cheeks and the tight grip she had on the seat. It went on forever, the dry heave, her gut trying to turn itself inside out. And then it stopped, just as suddenly as it started, and left Tabitha gasping for breath and continuing to cry, just from the pain now and the horrible stone in her stomach that never went away. She flushed and filled the sink with water, silent sobs sending tremors through her small, pale frame as she kept rinsing away acid and saliva and mucus from her face. She couldn’t leave the room with tearstains on her cheeks and a running nose. Pa would ask. 

Tabitha managed to get herself under control after a little while longer. She brushed her teeth – the paste stinging her mouth even more - combed her hair out, and washed her face again before she left the bathroom, cautiously venturing downstairs to make supper. Pa was yelling in the living room about work and the cheating bastards he played with today and how he always had to come home to a wife who couldn’t even get onto her damned feet. Andrew said Pa called the other players names because he couldn’t stand losing, and Ma didn’t want to get onto her damned feet because she couldn’t carry her own weight anymore without support- Everything he said made so much sense to Tabitha. She had to cough to cover a sob, and stifled all other noise. Can’t think about Andy right now. Just make supper.

 

\------ - - ------- - - ------- - - ------ - - -------

He avoided her when they ate. Pa decided he wanted to beat on Ma, though Tabitha did get a thorough tongue-lashing for not having the meal ready when he came home. She went to knock on Andrew’s door after they finished supper, but he didn’t answer. She tried the knob hesitantly, finding it locked, and then retreated into the corner of her bedroom farthest from her own door. She bit her left thumbnail while she buried herself in Neverland.

Andrew never locked her out.

Andrew locked her out.

\------ - - ------- - - ------- - - ------ - - -------

 

She couldn’t sleep at all that evening. She tried, and she kept tossing and turning in bed, kept curling up and pulling the covers tighter, but she couldn’t get comfortable, didn’t feel safe. She got out of bed and pulled a sweater over the over-sized shirt she was wearing, and silently opened her door and crossed the hall to Andrew’s bedroom, trying the knob again. Still locked. 

Tabitha pattered back to her room and shut the door, turning on the lamp at her desk and listening carefully for any noise. Just the normal New York nighttime buzz. She crawled under her bed and pulled out a sheet of paper and pen, setting it down on her desk and staring at it, clutching the pen like it might disappear. She pressed the tip on the paper, trying to coax words out, but they didn’t come. A line did, instead, so she let it leak out, making slow, impulsive strokes until they formed a distorted little picture of a short female leaning against a taller male, fondness radiating from the pair.

She smiled when it was done, and folded it neatly, tucking it into an envelope and setting it beside her pillow so she wouldn’t forget to give it to him when he came to say goodbye.

She turned off the lamp and tucked the pen away, snuggling into bed and drawing the blanket tight around herself again, drifting off peacefully.

\------ - - ------- - - ------- - - ------ - - -------

 

Tabitha woke up a little earlier than usual, and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She stared at the envelope by her pillow in momentary confusion, and the content expression on her face shattered as she remembered what happened yesterday. She picked it up and left her room to go to Andrew’s, but stopped as soon as she stepped into the hall. His door was open.

She stared at it for a few moments before she crossed the hall slowly, trying to brace herself, and entered the room.

She dropped the paper and tried to breathe in, tears surfacing and her stomach flopping. His bed was stripped, his closet doors open and only a few things left in it, his desk bare. She tried to step forward, for no particular reason, and found that she couldn’t. A hard inhale that was gasped out, repeated, and she doubled over, squeezing her eyes shut, trying not to vomit.

“You said you’d say goodbye,” she whispered, as if he was actually there, and then started to cry again, shuddering and trying not to fall over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: I know I said after chapter one, you're pretty safe. But. Writing happened. So, this chapter's triggers: physical child abuse, neglect, alcohol abuse, mention of gambling, vague depiction of underage. Slut-shaming, cutting, blood.
> 
> After this chapter, there will be far fewer triggers, if any. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry if there is any triggering content I haven't tagged or put in the chapter notes - please let me know if there is so that I can edit and add the tag and note.

Tabitha lived in a haze for the first several weeks without Andrew. The morning he left, Ma noticed immediately and started asking her if she knew where her brother was. It took her the usual amount of time – until lunch – to drink herself tipsy. She forgot over and over again that he wasn’t at home, kept asking Tabitha where Andrew was. Tabitha would reply that she didn’t know, he left to go somewhere, and then Ma would fret and worry and eventually drink a little more and forget again that he was gone.

Pa came home to supper on the table. Tabitha thought it was just better that everything be perfect for him today. Maybe it was. She couldn’t tell, because the moment he sat down and didn’t see his son at dinner, his wife as usual nearly unconscious from her drink, he got just as angry as any other night over the last few months.

It _had_ been the last few months. Summer vacation was harder on Ma than the rest of the year. She was home, alone, with her children. Tabitha and Andrew could see her weakness all the time. So because she felt so vulnerable, she drank more. When Ma drank more, Pa was angry more often. It didn’t matter that it was his fault that she drank in the first place, that it was her inability to tell him to fuck off that made her vulnerable, that it was his anger that scared the shit out of her and his constant distance from and use of his family that had her drinking in the first place. It didn’t matter, because when Pa came home, he wanted supper on the table and his wife sober and his kids sitting there. And when Pa came home and supper wasn’t on the table and his wife was drunk and his son was missing, it certainly was not his fault and he had a right to be pissed off at them. So the last few months had been hard. 

There had been, over the course of the family's life, months where Pa had winning streaks and was worshipped at work. He was kinder to Ma, and Ma was able to stay sober. During those months they were almost a 'normal' family, where Pa came home and everybody sat and listened to him talk about his job and winnings and the weather. Heck, there’d been a couple years where he had barely hit any of them.

But these last few months were bad.

Tabitha had expected the next couple to be nightmarish, with Andrew gone. But they weren't, not really. Pa came home, Andy wasn’t there, and they called all the people they knew. He beat Tabitha until the bruises hurt so much that she couldn't feel the pain in her stomach when she threw up. And then he kept beating, until she was crying and begging him to _stop, I don’t know anything, please believe me, daddy._ That only lasted a week, at the most, and the physical pain and tenderness that had Tabitha wincing every time she bent over or jostled against something was nothing, compared to other times. She hadn't been locked in her closet overnight and until supper the next day. She didn't have to watch him beat up Andy because she'd disappointed and hear him promise to stop if Andrew would only hit her. It wasn't as bad as calling 911 when she was little and didn’t understand what his job was, and being transferred to Pa instead of listened to. And it wasn't as bad as that holiday where the extended family came over and he _almost_ hugged her but then shot a sarcastic ‘compliment’ at her instead. Pa hadn’t been playing games this time, hadn't been messing with her head, trying to manipulate her, hadn't been degrading, hadn't told her she looked like a boy or a corpse. He’d just been beating and asking, beating and asking, and the only answer she could give him was the truth. So this time wasn’t as bad as other times. 

He finally stopped prodding and hitting and actually believed that she wasn’t lying. Tabitha with an unsettled and disgusted feeling as the black and blue turned yellow and she thought more and more about why he'd stopped hitting her so soon. He thought that if she knew, he'd only have to beat her for a week to get her to tell on Andrew, that she was so weak and so untrustworthy that it would only take a few beatings for her to give it up. She wondered if he was right. If she _had_ known, how many bruises would it have taken before she would've decided to tell on her brother? How many days in a row of being left in a closet?

. . .what if Andrew had thought the same thing?

What if Andrew thought that she wasn't trustworthy enough to tell her? What if he thought she was so weak, she'd give him up after just a few beatings? Or maybe that she didn't care enough about him?

Those questions killed her the most, left her in more pain than the bruising did. She wished she could ask him, wished that he’d reassure her that he thought better of her, that she was stronger than Pa thought she was, that she was stronger than _Ma_ was, that she was right when she thought she’d be able to hold her ground and not give up so easily. But he wasn’t there, and Tabitha just kept living through the pain.

Once that week passed, they still looked for Andrew. Another week, and Pa sat down at the table one evening, Ma asked if the police had any luck looking for him, and Pa just looked coldly back at her and said, in the most uncaring voice Tabitha had ever heard from him, “The boy made the choice to leave us. To leave _you_ , and _you_ ,” he’d pointed to Ma first, then Tabitha. “He’s putting us through hell by deciding to ruin his life out there, and he’s a disappointment and a disgrace as the son of a policeman. So, until he realizes he’s made a mistake and asks to come back, and _apologizes_ to both of you for betraying your care, he has no place in our conversations. Understood?”

Ma drank. Tabitha stared at her plate. They both had to nod. And Andrew was never mentioned at the table again. His chair was moved to the basement the next day, and Pa was going to clear out his room, but Tabitha offered to do it instead – Pa was fine with that, he had hockey to watch anyways. She didn’t clean it out, though. She wasn’t ready to play that game. When she cleaned it out, it would be as closure, not as pretending that Andrew didn’t exist and wasn’t her family. She just locked his door instead and made sure she had the only keys to it.

After that week, after Pa decided that he didn’t have a son, he stopped beating Tabitha. He didn't stop hurting Ma, and she didn't stop drinking, but he stopped beating Tabitha. It was okay, for the first few months. But by the time she got halfway through first term of the next year, Tabitha had realized that when the beatings stopped, so did everything else. Any brief talking that Pa would’ve done with her, any attention at all. The remarks, the challenging eye-contact that she always obediently looked away from first, the 'thanks for helping with dinner'. It all stopped. She started to miss it. The beatings, the eye-contact, the cruel remarks. Hearing his disappointment, disapproval, mocking, blaming, knowing that he almost approved of her in those moments that she was utterly terrified, feeling his thumb wipe away the tears on her cheeks, and warm hands touch her for the split seconds that it took for a fist or slap to land, or for the length of time it took to grab and twist her arm or throw her against the floor or wall. . . anything was better than nothing.

Anything.

But he gave Tabitha nothing, only ever beat or talked to Ma. And Tabitha started to realize for the first time that he’d never actually cared about her. Never. At all. Whenever he beat her, it always went along with something that had happened with Andrew or Ma. Or he’d hurt Andrew or Ma after if there hadn’t been anything before. He loved his son. _His_ son. That he’d had with _his_ wife. But he'd never even cared about Tabitha. There was no room for her. She was _someone else’s_ daughter. She was a _tool_ that he used on the other two whenever he needed one.

He always said she had a pretty face. His little corpse with a pretty face. Tabitha felt the awful truth in it now. She sat at the table every evening like a porcelain doll, pretty to look at but silent. She'd do dishes while he was in the next room with Ma, then go up to her bedroom to do homework and whatever else while he gave Ma what little attention he decided he had that evening. She had a pretty face, she was a nice little thing to keep on his shelf and show around at work functions, but she was worthless when his son was gone.

She wasn't worth callous remarks. She wasn't worth Ma being sober. She wasn't worth Andrew staying.

And knowing that, as well as feeling empty and alone, without even a bruise left to show that she'd ever been worth even _that_ , reduced Tabitha to one massive, throbbing wound. After sitting on the shelf all day and managing to not soil her pretty face with tears, she couldn't help but cry at night. Every night. There was too much pain not to.

Ma gave her a movie ticket for her birthday, the fifteenth of October, so she went and watched the Batman movie that had just come out. The seats beside her were empty. Pa didn’t say anything to her, and she hoped so badly that he’d forgotten, just because it was better than him remembering and not caring, pretending she wasn’t there. Ma, trying to get him to do something, she guessed, pointed it out at the table. Pa’s response shattered Tabitha’s delusion of hope.

“Oh. I forgot. Happy birthday. How old are you, again, twelve?” he’d said jokingly. It stung, but it was a good sting. It was new, it was something. He hadn’t looked at her while he spoke, but he’d said something.

"Sixteen," she’d replied, hoping for something, anything more. But he didn't respond. She felt like an Alien spawn had split open her chest.

She got a part time job just after that. It took up a couple hours every evening, and several on the weekends. She was still a porcelain doll there for most people, as a cashier. But that was okay. Their opinions didn't matter. What was important was that it took her away from the house so she didn’t have to feel so lonely with two people there. She missed Halloween and Thanksgiving and most of Christmas vacation, too. But the store wasn’t open on Christmas day. Of all the horrible holidays they’d had, without Andrew there, without a single glance from Pa in her direction, that was Tabitha’s worst.

She worked through Andy’s birthday in February because it made her miss him less. She cleaned out his room on a night Pa gambled away, cleaned all his stuff into a cardboard box. Tabitha locked herself in for privacy so that she could cry all the pain out, ask all her questions while no one else was there. _Why did you leave? Why haven’t you even emailed me? Where are you? What are you doing? Is Pa right? Didn’t you trust me? Did you care? Did you mean anything you told me? Did I say something? Did I hurt you? Is it my fault? What did I do wrong? Did I even matter? Why did you leave? Are you ever coming back? Why?_

The box found its way into the basement with Andrew’s chair, but the questions stayed, the doubt lingered, the distrust in herself grew, the loneliness and the need for _anything_ multiplied, especially when the boy from before approached her again during school. Andrew wasn’t there this time, and when he touched her, when he started telling her those things. . . She _couldn’t_ move, couldn’t turn his voice off, wanted _so badly_ to stay in his arms and keep listening to his voice, smooth and dark and flawless. She felt like she was drowning in the older teenager.

It only took a few weeks for the touching to escalate, the physical contact and verbal affirmation becoming more and more intoxicating. He didn’t even have to ask, the first time. She opened her mouth, let him invade, pressed against him so that she could feel as much of him as possible, peeled off her shirt on her own, and opened her legs and clung to him and just about died at the full feeling. So, so very _full._

It was so short, though. Moments of fullness, then warmth through the latex sheath, then. . .then he pulled out and pet her for a little while. And they had to get out of the park and go home. And then the next day, the same thing, drowning and making herself vulnerable, moments of not being empty, he'd be so satisfied and pleased with her, and then less petting. Less, every time, until he stopped talking to her in school and never ran into her at work or anywhere else. And then she was alone again, and it was worse. So, so much worse. She’d had a taste of something more, and then it was gone, and all she could do was follow him for a few minutes every day and hope that maybe he’d just look at her. Just for a second.

He never did.

And Ma never noticed, which meant Pa certainly didn't. Andrew would have. But Tabitha had too many unanswered questions, too much confusion around Andrew, and she thought if he had known, he would've been disappointed. 

Someone at school said something to someone else just days later.

Tabitha walked through the halls hiding her face every day for the last months of the school year, trying to be as small as possible, hoping to god that no one would see her, that she’d be invisible and there wouldn’t be any whispering or mocking. She couldn’t name the number of times she’d had to rub marker off her locker door, the number of snide comments other girls made, the way some guys now looked at her. She started feeling dirty every time she even thought about that full feeling.

So the crying at night got worse. And as wrong, as horribly _filthy_ as it felt, she still wanted that feeling, and she tried to get it by herself. She tried fingers, first, and it wasn’t enough. She used her hairbrush later. She looked it up on the net, found her clit, experienced the wave of pleasure that she hadn’t before, that had seemed alien when his partner had had his. It only felt worse the next day at school, and even moreso when some genius discovered later in the day that scratches didn't come out of metal.

 _Slut. Whore. Easy._ The words started to invade her the same way worthless, corpse, and doll had.

Every time she needed to feel full – almost every night by the time summer vacation was over – the orgasm hit just before the wave of shame and even more loneliness than she'd had before touching. Tabitha hated herself. She shouldn’t have been so stupid, shouldn’t have been so vulnerable, shouldn’t have asked for this.

It was quite by accident, one morning in the bathroom. The mosquitoes were getting bad this year, and she was scratching furiously at a bite on her wrist, focusing just on that stupid little bite, trying to forget that when she was done she had to walk through a hall and then sit in a class full of people who knew, distracting herself with an algebraic problem she was having trouble finding the answer to. Her nail caught, ripped open the skin just a little.

Tabitha stared at the abrasion as the blood welled to the surface, and felt a moment of relief, like she’d just found an oasis and everything but the little bit of pain and that drop of blood was leagues away. Gravity pulled it down the side of her wrist, leaving a pretty line of crimson, and the one drop fell onto the floor. 

She heard it hit the tile, thick and wet.

She blinked, stared at the cut, and regained her senses after a moment, absently licking it off her arm while she reached quickly for a piece of toilet paper and wiped the liquid off the floor. She had to take meds for a disease in her blood, couldn’t let it touch anyone. That’s what the doctors said.

The doctors also seemed to be blind when it came to bruises, but. . .

Tabitha finished wiping it off the floor, looked down at the cut as it started to scab. This was new. And good. It didn’t feel shameful and unclean and embarrassing. It felt good.

So it became part of her nightly routine.

Summer vacation came. The pressure came off, the shame wasn’t so bad. She didn’t cut as often, and she worked longer shifts, understanding completely why Andrew had started his part time job when he was her age. Tabitha found she didn’t need as much sleep as she used to. She worked more on her computer, did extra studies on her own on different subjects, stayed away from her parents as much as possible. . . and late into the summer, began filling out job applications for any position that could potentially end up paying more than minimum wage and lead somewhere that could take her out of this house.

One evening, just after her birthday and before Halloween, the doorbell rang in the middle of dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on, for a while, it gets lighter.


End file.
